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I was studying てあります and ています in the context of 他動詞 and 自動詞 with my Japanese
teacher. I had to choose between 止める and 止まる in the following sentence:

> 学生：こんにちは。先生、お迎えに来ました。家の前に私の車が＿＿＿＿。どうぞお乗りください。

Being a good (sic) student, I noticed the が particle, and went for the 自動詞;
止まっています. It didn't feel odd to me: You could easily say "The car is stopped
(parked) in front of the house" and that would make sense. Note also that the
explanations accompanying my exercices didn't make mention of any exceptions.

My teacher told me it was wrong, and that it should be 止めてあります。She explained
that even though it wasn't specified, the student probably meant that they
purposefully parked the car in front of the house, thus explaining why the 他動詞
form was picked.

But then, why use が? If it's insinuated that the student stopped the car, the
car is obviously an object, not the subject of the sentence, and thus would
need を. There are scenarios where the object is marked with が, but in my
experience, those are all related to ability (e.g. ができる) or wants (e.g. が欲しい).

Am I missing something? Is this just a very niche case of "This is correct
because that is how Japanese people speak"? Is there a grammar rule I'm not
aware of?


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particle-が transitivity
Why do we use が instead of を with a 他動詞 in the expression 車が止めてあります?


> Is there a grammar rule I'm not aware of?

Yes. 他動詞 + ある is a fairly common grammar pattern. It takes the particle が, and
it is used to signal that an action has been taken _deliberately_ by someone
and as a result, you have the current state.

Compare:

> 窓が開いています。 The window is open.
>
> 窓が開けてあります。 [Someone] left the window open [possibly with a particular
> purpose in mind].

In the context of your example, 車が止めてあります means that someone, in this case the
student, parked the car on purpose, and it remains in this state (i.e.
parked).

> But then, why use が?

Since the action is deliberate, it takes a transitive verb 他動詞, but it
requires が instead of を because you are indicating a state of things.

For reference, see [てある and ておく – Expressing verbs with intent and
preparation](https://kabekatsudon.wordpress.com/2016/11/02/jp-
grammar-%E3%81%A6%E3%81%82%E3%82%8B-and-%E3%81%A6%E3%81%8A%E3%81%8F-expressing-
verbs-with-intent-and-preparation/).


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> You could easily say "The car is stopped (parked) in front of the house" and
> that would make sense.

Yes, but this phrasing loses nuance.

The plain form of います is いる, which is used for animate things. It pairs with
the te-form of 自動詞 because something has to be animate in order to be
responsible for its own change in state.

> But then, why use が? If it's insinuated that the student stopped the car,
> the car is obviously an object, not the subject of the sentence

The car is the still a grammatical _subject_. It just isn't an _agent_. In
English, if "I tan in the sun", "I" am still the subject, even though it's the
sun which causes my skin's pigmentation to change - I am not consciously
choosing to change it while merely incidentally sitting in full sunlight.

The 自動詞/他動詞 distinction is slightly different from transitive/intransitive as
we understand it in English.

In the (abbreviated) example 車が止めてあります, the main verb is ある (あります), not 止める.
While it's convenient to think of the pattern of putting something in te-form
and then adding いる・ある as a "conjugation" (i.e. inflection of a verb), and in a
sense it is indeed that - we _accomplish_ it by making いる・ある the main verb, to
which we have prefixed some modifier. (Similar reasoning applies to 〜ていく, 〜てくる
etc.)

In a more pedantic English translation - not really proper English, but
written to expose the distinctions made in Japanese - the car being-stopped-ly
unconsciously-exists. It wasn't itself responsible for stopping, and it's
current state is the result of someone or something else (i.e., the student)
acting to stop it. But _the car_ is the thing which we are saying exists, not
the student. "To exist" is intransitive ( _actually_ intransitive, not simply
自動詞), and it's something the car does. So it's the grammatical subject, so 車
is marked with が.

Saying 車が止まっています is in a sense a valid structure, but it means that the car
having-stopped-ly consciously-exists. The implication is that the car took
some deliberate action to stop, and is now in a motionless state as the
aftermath of stopping.

(If you're thinking that this sounds a lot like perfective form in English -
that it's notable that the translations use the past participle "stopped" -
you may find [this Q&A](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/98186)
interesting. I think I've seen other variations on this theme around the site
as well.)


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One can use either “〜が” or “〜を” actually, but they have different meanings.

We first have to analyse the “〜てある” form of transitive verbs. This form means
that some state has been achieved well in advance by someone.

  * “窓が開けてある” [“The window is left open”]
  * “この本に書いてある文章” [“The text written down in this book”]

The interesting aspect of this form is that it can both be used transitively
and intransitively itself, both “〜が〜を〜てある” and “〜が〜てある” occur. In the former
case, the subject maps to what was the object in the original verb. In the
latter case, both remain the same, such that:

  * “私が窓を開けてある” [“The window is left open by me.”]
  * “窓が開けてある” [“The window is left open.”]

can both be used.

So. “家に私の車を止めてある” is correct, but it means “[I] parked my car in front of my
house.” opposed to “My car was parked in front of my house.”. In any case,
while the transitive form of this pattern can be used, it is far rarer than
the intransitive form and really only used in cases when one wants to be
explicit about specifying an agent. Which is why “車が止めてある” is far more
natural, but “私が車を止めてある” is certainly not ungrammatical either.


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